#ria kataja

[letterboxd-loggd]

Family Time (Mummola) (2023) Tia Kouvo

December 22nd 2025

[hehkuvamyyhapero]

Kuumin suomalainen vintagenäyttelijä, kierros 1, pari 33

Ria Kataja

Tiina Lymi

Voting ended onJun 18, 2024

Ria Kataja on tunnettu mm. Paratiisin lapset, Taivaan tulet

Tiina Lymi on tunnettu mm. Akvaariorakkaus, Vuoroin vieraissa

[watchingalotofmovies]

Aurora

Aurora    [trailer]

Aurora, a commitment-phobic party animal, meets Iranian Darian one night at a hot-dog stand in Lapland. Darian is running from death and Aurora is running from love.

Most of the plot beats are entirely predictable. But it is still told in such an engaging, charming and most of the time understated way, that draws you into the story. It's also very funny. Deserves to be much more widely distributed.

Was machst du in meine Lederhosen?

[atumn]

Musta Jää (2007)

[bubskino]

Tarhapäivä

Yh-faija jaksaa painaa nihkeää arkea. Homma synkistyy entisestään kivan muikkelin jäädessä ratikan alle. Senkin skidii tarviis hetki kasvatella. Pikkujuttuja.

Jatkopala Yösyötölle. Ei nyt ihan skeidan löysimmästä päästä, mut ei järin kovaakaan kakkaa. Suljua siis.

2/5

[whatmovietoday-blog]

"Black Ice" ("Musta Jää", Finland/2007)

Directed and written by Petri Kotwica | Starring Outi Mäenpää, Ria Kataja, Martti Suosalo, Ville Virtanen

Black Ice is, from visuals to dialogs, as the title suggests, dark and icy. It sounds redundant, but it's literally the only way I can describe such experience. It's not merry, it's not clean, and it's hard to keep standing still the whole time. Pour some amazing soundtrack by Eicca Toppinen (from Apocalyptica) and we're all set.

It tells the story of a middle-aged obstetrician, Saara (Mäenpää), who finds out her husband, the architect Leo (Suosalo) is cheating her with one of his students. Saara then stalks the girl, Tuuli (Kataja). When Saara starts to attend the Tuuli's martial arts class, they meet and start getting along - but instead of revealing who she is, Saara creates a whole new identity. Once she earns Tuuli's trust, she starts plotting a revenge against her and Leo.

Right when Saara and Tuuli are starting to know each other, the best line of the movie shows up: when asked what she does, Saara answers "I'm a psycho... logist." A psycho alright: not Saara anymore, but Christa Ericsson, a divorced psychologist, formerly married to Peter who now fools around with German boys.

Saara divorces from Leo, starts living alone, hangs out with Tuuli an awful lot and then she unfolds her plan. She manages to get a restraining order for Tuuli not to come any closer to her house or her workplace by leaving a threatening voicemail on her own phone, which Tuuli takes the entire responsibility in front of the police. And that's just the beginning. her double agent skills are clever, but you keep expecting things to go wrong all the time. They don't, and the plot twists and twists again... it's Hitchcockian.

All of the actors in Black Ice are good, but Mäenpää and Kataja are just fantastic - and the chemistry between them is very well build up, to a point where you don't know if Saara is really attached to Tuuli or she's just pretending really well. You also start to sort of cheer for them to become actual friends, out of those circumstances. That's how touching it is. By the end of the movie, you finally get to understand Saara's intentions, and it's... well, no spoiler policy, dammit. But it's kind of relieving.

It's a great thriller, with snippets of comedy every now and then, and a truckload of unnecessary sex scenes (like The House of Branching Love. I'm starting to think this is a pattern for Finnish cinema, is it?). Check this movie out. It'll make for a fun evening and make you reconsider cheating all along.